The CHANGE has come.

This past week spring has definitely come to Northeast Oregon and McKuster Ranch. Last Sunday Kittee and I did our first horseback riding of the season in our riverside arena. Before riding I came into the house to put on my riding boots, and heard a knock, knock, knocking at our back door. I turned around and there stood my ole pal Dale Cosper with a beautiful headstall and set of riding reins in his hands. I quickly made a comment about how nice the headstall was, and he told me it was mine. All I could say was WOW!!! and Thank you. He said that he and wife Cheri were heading out to go horseback riding and he was on his way, I told him thanks again.
Dale, Cheri and I have been working on their website for the past few months, through the winter weather, and it is mostly done ---
South Fork Horse Ranch, home of EAGLEFROMTHELIGHT ---
our Rosey's sire. Yes, we still have some fine tuning yet to do, but the site is now presentable. What a wonderful headstall to say Thank you. I told Dale, that his move would now make me have to polish up the silver on my saddle to sparkle/ match this headstall. Gee, the silver on this tack is bright.

Kittee and did have a wonderful ride last Sunday, so much so that we decided we needed to do it again on Monday. She got out of her office early enough for us to get in a late afternoon ride, again in the arena. Right now we are doing a lot of schooling of our horses to get them in tune for the long distance riding time they will get once they are shod, in three weeks.

Our weather this week had been springtime beautiful. The horseback rides both days felt great, and I am happy to announce that my old back injuries did not suffer from the wear.
During our ride in the arena, I knew that my work was cutout for me as the week progressed. Our sandy riding surface had become grown over with grass and weeks during its non-use over winter and early spring. So Tuesday I brought out the Round Up and sprayer. I sprayed the garden, the fence lines and the arena to knock back the new growth of spring. Wednesday 24 hours after spraying the garden, I re-tilled it again with a new application of Rusty's keep horse manure in the rows.

Wednesday evening, we had our third meeting of the Walla² Fly Fishers. The name Walla² the group found "catchy" from my use/reference of squaring Walla Walla in most of my recent communications. This is a newly formed group of fly fishers from around the Walla Walla and Milton-Freewater area. At this meeting we discussed the club's organization and affiliation with FFF as a Charter Chapter. I was elected to be club Secretary. This week's meeting we had 16 "member" present, and for those that could not make it we now have about 25 interested individuals making up the club to date.

Friday was a pretty busy day. This was the day I let my hair down.
During the p.m. school bus run, I had a number kids tell my that my hair looked different. It was not in a ponytail. This was the day I was letting my locks relax and hang free.

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I shall step back -digress- at this point, and express some of
my feelings about my hair; for anyone who cares.
This is not about the comings and goings of Kittee and Dale,
but my personal feelings, my conscience.

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For years I have despised the lies of politics, and the hatred generated by those that have created torture chambers for human beings, with US/my taxpayer $$$$. Mankind has learned so little, from the days of the Nazi-Jewish Holocaust, the "Christian's" Inquisitions of his fellow man, and the killing fields of Vietnam. War is nothing more that a man-made killing machine where only the greedy, and government power leeches win. Goddamn the likes of those that embrace and wage war for their cause of greed.
My ponytail was in part a flag of my defiance and hatred of those that feel that killing babies, their mothers and fathers is an answer for the American corporate profits/greed & US oil consumption/need. The burden of this hatred for the US killing breed has now been lifted from me, by a new age, a change. It feels good to once again be free of those that have created the killing fields of Iraq, for the unquestioned profiteering of the US industrial-military complex that President Eisenhower (R) so warned US about developing during his presidency. Up until the day Richard Chaney take over our White House; who had every heard of a "NO-Bid" corporate profits contract to wage war on the innocent people of a third world nation?
It was the night of the '08 Elections, I began telling friends that with the Baghdad Baby Bomber leaving our White House along with his Halliburton Oil Corporation-Puppet Master; that I could feel "The Times, They Are A-Changin". My ponytail was my flag to wave in hopes that no one on Earth would associate me with the likes of the US #1 moron G.W. Bush, his den of Enron and oil corporations thieves.
Each day I now thank the
Great Spirit-Creator of All
for the man of intelligence, social grace and compassion we now recognize as our President. I am so very thankful that now we have a true leader, a Peace Maker, a world class standard of being a civilized, and straight shooting man for our President. God Bless America for this CHANGE of the civilized American heart. I salute you, Barack Obama, the President of the civilized USA.
This is all I have to say for politics and the shape of things left US from the past eight years of the Me, My, I-greed society; that cared nothing about the tomorrow payback their children now have to face for many years to come. Goddamn those greedy SOB's and their years of human torture at US taxpayer expense.

I will now be sending my hair braid (16") to Locks of Love, and hope someone less fortunate than I can use a new hair piece of graying hair. I have had a lot of women tell me that my hair was too beautiful to cut off. I hope now someone will get good use of it. This is my feelings about my hair and why it became long and then 6 years longer.

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Saturday, yesterday I spent the day taking the MacHi baseball team out to Baker City, OR. It was a beautiful day for tripping across the mountains. As we crested the Blue Mountains into La Grande the Eagle Caps stood truly like snow capped eagles.

As we entered the Powder River Valley the Wallowa Mtn. Range the "Little Switzerland of America" were mostly shrouded in clouds with some of its nearly 10,000' peak shining through on the north side of the valley, and the Elkhorn Mtn. Range showed only a few of its 9,000' peak of snow caps to the south of I-84. Even with the partly cloudy conditions the sun break on these mountain tops make a most beautifully, majestic scene that lifts the human spirit towards The Creator.

Today Kittee and I worked on fencing. We split the mares away from the geldings and "Miles the mule", turned on the water to the back pasture and let everyone graze sweet green pasture grasses.

And that the way it is around the ranch for another week in the lives of Kittee and Dale.

Happy Trails,
Dale

Happy Birthday Dear Kittee, Happy Birthday to you.

Woke up Friday to find another morning's snow covering at the 1300' level, in our yard.
Kittee and I started our day with coffee, breakfast was a bowl of cereal to get a quick start on the day. This, was the first day of my three day weekend. There was no school (a teachers' in-service workday) with no students for me to transport. Kittee had to work half a day.

Again I had plans to get a lot of outdoor chores done during this 3-day weekend. Snow didn't look like a great way to start this day, like we haven't had enough snow already. The weather forecast was for things to change as the weekend progressed, this I was looking forward to.

Kittee had Milton-Freewater court session Friday a.m. so I figured I would go watch her court proceeding until the weather changed, or we found something better to do. We also had plans to go to Tollgate to pick up Kittee's early Birthday present today, but Tollgate had an additional 8" of snow overnight, so those plans appeared to have been snowed out. After court was over, we had lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant in M-F and then went to Walla Walla to take care of some business there and get our monthly supply of wild blueberry granola and yellow grits.
Arriving back at the ranch the sun had broken out of the clouds so we went out and groomed horses. I did start laying out a small pasture area for Rusty Friday afternoon, so he could have more time outside his keep grazing without having too much exposure with the rest of the herd. The rest of the afternoon, evening we just kicked back and relaxed with a beer watching the sunset.

Saturday started out beautifully, with a touch of morning frost and pure sunshine from above.

Kittee went out and threw hay to the herds, while I prepared our breakfast favorite of apple bread - French Toast with sausage on the side. Again this was more like having a dessert than a meal to start the day. After breakfast we started grooming horses again with anticipation of getting to do a horseback ride on Sunday, maybe even this afternoon if we didn't go to Tollgate. I continued to work on Rusty's pasture layout, while Kittee rode Nugget in the round pen. We were staying busy; waiting for a 2 o'clock telephone call from Tollgate to see if the roads were clear enough to go after Kittee's present. While outside working with the herd the call came that the roads in Tollgate were clear. When we came in for our lunch break we got the call, grabbed some lunch and were on our way.

Now, let me give you a little story from a couple of years ago. I think it was on a back country trip into Minam Lodge, that we meet a woman with a six-pack of beer in her saddlebags, a package of Marlboro cigarettes in her pocket and one in her lips and as we found her; she was drinking a beer at 10:30 a.m. Can you get this picture... a blond woman geared up to take a four hour back country wilderness ride on the back of a Mule with a beer in hand at 1030 hours? The Mule was a cool character on the trail, and probably kept that woman from going over the side of the mountain being the more stable of the two.
It was again sometime last winter '07-'08 that Kittee and I were at the Walla Walla indoor riding arena and there we met a talking Mule, I think Jingles was his name. Well since then Kittee has wanted a Mule. It was about two months ago I ran into a vet-tech / friend or mine in the grocery store, and we were talking about equines. I mentioned to Lori that we had quite enough equines, but were still thinking that if the opportunity arose for us to get a Mule or a Leopard Appaloosa, we might jump it that chance. I told Lori that Kittee really wanted a talking Mule. Well to make a long story short, Lori had a Mule and now for Kittee's birthday I got her this Mule.

Let me introduce "Miles" Kittee's talking Mule. At McKuster Ranch birthdays and X-mas come on the occasion of we get what we are looking for, not on a particular date found on everyone else's calendar. Kittee does get to celebrate July 8th as her special day.

Miles is a most gentle character, and yes he does talk to us. As we took him out to pasture, Kittee walked him around the pasture a couple of times while I was reseting electric fence and Miles met the Riches -neighbors across the road- he talked with them a bit. After Kittee made a couple of circles, I walked Miles around and introduced him to the welcoming committee that had formed across the gate in the paddock. Derby was most interested in this new guy on the farm.

The rest of the evening Kittee and I spent brushing and talking with Miles and letting him settle into his new home. After petting Miles we sit back next to his pasture with a glass of wine and enjoyed the sunset until the air became a bit too cool to sit out. Sunset this weekend was at 7:21.

This was our Saturday, and with the advent of what really feels like Spring, we will be leaving PHC-Garrison Keillor and the news from Lake Wobegon to those that are indoor bound. Gee it feel good to be out in the fresh air and wide open spaces around our home. With a busy day planned for Sunday we went to bed early so we could get an early start.

Daybreak now is about 5:30 with sunrise happening at 7:15 this weekend.
Kittee and I started early Sunday with her going out to feed horses and goats, I prepared a pot of grits, with sausage patties to start our day. Right after breakfast we headed back for the arena to do repairs of the winter's storm/wind damage. We had horseback riding on our minds for this day. About half way through this job Lori dropped by to visit and say hello to Miles and Rusty. Lori had never met Rusty, and I have been inviting her out everytime I see her at Doc Kennedy's vet clinic... "come out and visit with my stallion Rusty." One of Lori's best friends and neighbor was Rusty's first owner about 8 years ago.

Anyway, after Lori left we got back to finish our arena repair work and took a quick lunch break. Thereafter we got Nugget and Misty saddled up and went for a short arena ride.

This was our first time really spent on horses this spring so we were not going to over do it for them or ourselves.

We rode about an hour to an hour and a half (first time since Kittee broke her wrist) and everyone was happy to be out on this nice spring warm-up. We are hoping that if we can find the time we will be able to get in a little horseback riding in on Monday afternoon/evening.

With the feeling in the air that 60° and 70° days might become the norm around here I am happy to announce that Spring has sprung at McKuster Ranch.

And so this is the way it is around the ranch this 3-day weekend. Wish you could be here.

Happy Trails,
Dale